The only reason to favor jpg against raw is laziness. I never shoot jpg.

Exactly. I'm amazed that people buy high-end DSLRs with top glass, and shoot 8-bit JPEG. Archiving in JPEG form is just plain silly, so I cannot see any reason to shoot them unless you just don't care or are taking meaningless snapshots.

With editors like Lightroom making conversion as simple as "Exporting to JPEG", there is almost no reason to shoot JPEG. If you don't think you'll have time to work in LR on any given shoot, at least shoot RAW + JPEG so you at least have one 14-bit digital negative of your image to hang onto.

I assume that since this a photography forum, you'd like decent photos and so go through some minimum editing process, starting with finding your best photos of the day.

Hard to get crop and level perfect, so you probably want to adjust that. WB, except in the most benign of conditions (outdoors in sunshine) is probably off a little. May want a little fill in many outdoor photos, some noise reduction for those difficult indoor shots, recover the highlights in high contrast outdoor scenes. Maybe add some vignetting for portraits, remove some for landscape. Add some sharpening, the amount depending on what you're going to do with the photo.

These are minimum, basic processing steps you should do for any photo you show to the world. Yet I find all these simple steps are easily and faster in my (ACR) RAW converting program. The tools, work flow, and results are simpler and better. For example, adjusting WB in Adobe RAW (to me) is easier than in Photoshop itself.

Once more, once you get the basic setting right for one photo, you can apply them to a batch of photos all at once, saving more time.

Plus (and it's a big plus), there are now many settings on my camera I don't have to worry about, speeding up my photographer further. WB, sharpness, contrast, color - no need. I never worry about the "look" of my camera's native about, no whining about skin tones or the Oly or Canon or Nikon colors or which JPEG engine is better. Just shoot and have fun.

I do this for B-day snapshots, fun photos, hikes, whatever. Always want to present my best work.

I assume that since this a photography forum, you'd like decent photos and so go through some minimum editing process, starting with finding your best photos of the day.

Hard to get crop and level perfect, so you probably want to adjust that. WB, except in the most benign of conditions (outdoors in sunshine) is probably off a little. May want a little fill in many outdoor photos, some noise reduction for those difficult indoor shots, recover the highlights in high contrast outdoor scenes. Maybe add some vignetting for portraits, remove some for landscape. Add some sharpening, the amount depending on what you're going to do with the photo.

These are minimum, basic processing steps you should do for any photo you show to the world. Yet I find all these simple steps are easily and faster in my (ACR) RAW converting program. The tools, work flow, and results are simpler and better. For example, adjusting WB in Adobe RAW (to me) is easier than in Photoshop itself.

Once more, once you get the basic setting right for one photo, you can apply them to a batch of photos all at once, saving more time.

Plus (and it's a big plus), there are now many settings on my camera I don't have to worry about, speeding up my photographer further. WB, sharpness, contrast, color - no need. I never worry about the "look" of my camera's native about, no whining about skin tones or the Oly or Canon or Nikon colors or which JPEG engine is better. Just shoot and have fun.

I do this for B-day snapshots, fun photos, hikes, whatever. Always want to present my best work.

So, for me using RAW is a time saver, very important in my busy life.

Yup, but more importantly, you are not throwing away the extra 4 or 6 bits (12 or 14 bits) of data while shooting raw. As far as I am concerned, that is the most important aspect of shooting raw, as well as maximizing the amount of control you want on your photography. For those reasons, I found raw simply priceless to use.

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All harsh, impolite and/or unreasonable replies will be simply ignored.Measurebators are out of my world, photography is not about babbling behind a computer... but rather being out of your home, shoot and share photographs with other people. Shoot and Share...Thanks.

How do you get the noise reduction right? White balance? Contrast? Sharpness? Do you ever need fill or highlight recovery for high contrast scenes?

RAW isn't just for exposure. And for difficult scenes, getting the exposure right can take longer than shooting and processing RAW.

It kind of kills me when people suggest the are so good they get exposure, WB, contrast, and sharpness right on every photo, but have no interest in using RAW.

I think this is an unfortunate reality, which is hard to face sometime, but that's the way it is, you won't change people, they only change if they are willing to do so.

gil wrote:

have any problem with others finding satisfaction with RAW :-D. De gustibus non est disputandum - of likes and dislikes, there should be no disputing - live and let live.

cheers,

gil

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Cheers, gil - San Jose, CA Cheap Lens, JPG and 100% Handholding Provocateur Like happiness, photography is often better created than pursued.

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All harsh, impolite and/or unreasonable replies will be simply ignored.Measurebators are out of my world, photography is not about babbling behind a computer... but rather being out of your home, shoot and share photographs with other people. Shoot and Share...Thanks.

I go to the gym 6 days a week, I practice and shoot competitively in pistol and bench rest competitions.. I also shoot wild life and can spend 8 hours in the woods 4 days a week.

So somewhere in the world you can shoot pistols and bench rests and wild life. Most of the wild life in my city is racoons and university students. About equal, as there are 30,000 University students and the same number of racoons trying to get into my attic.

I so with you live here M. Evil ou mauvais. You could shoot de raton han mak happy me.

I see my grandchildren and play with them 3 days a week...

I have a wife of 45 years married

To who?

and she is my number one priority...

and all these things take precedent over spending time processing RAW images...

I think the same thing except for oysters eh?

So as I said, your premise is rude and condescending... because "YOU " never shoot JPEG..

Some of the pros only make one shot a day. My relative on my Mom's side does the 3M and cornflakes. Once a week maybe. Good work if you get that right?

what does that mean to the rest of us who have much higher priorities than processing RAW images but still find that shooting snap shots

Oh now don't say snap shots, that gets people started and they hate us because we have nice gear and snap off shots.

and recording memories on a daily basis is in any way wrong because that's not what you do !....

Different strokes. I like dat J stroke where the blade stay in the water.

I have quite the same questions : I shoot raw+jpg but would like eventually to switch to raw only which would get rid of the jpg duplicates I almost nerver use myself.

But doing that is almost like switching to bluray only while all your friends still have DVD-only players. When with friends in week-end, vacation, etc... it is not unusual that they take my SD-card and upload photos to their laptop or tablet, and JPG makes things a LOT easier than starting my own laptop (if I have it) and converting those raw files.

And that may also give others the impression that I consider myself "a pro" with a "Oh ? you don't process raw files ?" attitude...

I have quite the same questions : I shoot raw+jpg but would like eventually to switch to raw only which would get rid of the jpg duplicates I almost nerver use myself.

But doing that is almost like switching to bluray only while all your friends still have DVD-only players. When with friends in week-end, vacation, etc... it is not unusual that they take my SD-card and upload photos to their laptop or tablet, and JPG makes things a LOT easier than starting my own laptop (if I have it) and converting those raw files.

And that may also give others the impression that I consider myself "a pro" with a "Oh ? you don't process raw files ?" attitude...

So I'll keep the raw+jpg setting active if only to share.

Skygkar

I have had instances where I need to share photos. If I know that is what I will be doing, then for those instances I can go to RAW+JPEG. But when I know it is just me and my immediate family I have no need.

Currently, though, most pictures I need to share I will give to them at a later point instead of right then and there. I will usually upload them to a site for them to access. And since most of them have no interest in pixel peeping or printing, I don't have to upload a full size photo for them either.

by "meaningless" I meant "unimportant" in the sense that they are just quick grab shots. I never said family photos, as clearly those are important. Wasn't trying to offend, just trying to distinguish a quick snap for your Facebook page in which you might shoot JPEG for speed vs a landscape image you make with your tripod or a studio portrait with strobes where you'd certainly want to shoot RAW.

But you posting those wonderful images brings up a greater point: Would you rather have those priceless images in JPEG, or a proper DNG or RAW?

Totally agree. The very fact that you're getting a higher 14-bit "digital negative" which never degrades as JPEG does when you edit it is reason enough to shoot RAW only, or RAW + JPEG at the very least. I almost never shoot JPEG only, or RAW + JPEG. I'd rather create my own JPEGs in Lightroom as that's my workflow, and ultimately for archiving I never want to be stuck with only JPEGs.

doing? You think you have a superior process than what others are using? I am happy with what I use and it is not RAW. I am not asking you or others to convince me otherwise as I am just giving another insight on why some like me would just stick it out with JPG to balance out why some wants it in RAW. If you are happy with RAW, so be it but don't keep on repeating the mantra that it is applicable to all.

cheers,

gil

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How do you get the noise reduction right? White balance? Contrast? Sharpness? Do you ever need fill or highlight recovery for high contrast scenes?

<gil> Fair questions and here are some amateurish input from me. You must know the answer to that if you believe yourself as a photographer :-). With years of amateur practice, studying the subject, locations' light/angles, experimentation, analyzing results, etc.; one can now set in the camera baseline settings that you have mentioned. In my case, I still do a bit of PP even when shooting JPG but my baselines are good start that I don't need to recover or improve much and of course only to my liking and preference. I am a simple and basic amateur using manual settings 90% of the time. I mostly vary only three variables - ISO, aperture and shutter speed (WB is basic manual - sunny for sunny condition, cloudy for cloudy, shade under shade, flash for flash). Control of light is mostly done with shutter adjustment once I set the baselines.

RAW isn't just for exposure. And for difficult scenes, getting the exposure right can take longer than shooting and processing RAW.

<gil> I have no problem with that but yes, tough conditions requires lots of fun experimentation and setup but I don't mind because it gives me a lot of time to analyze in the field what works ok and what does not work ok. I would rather have fun outside than inside :-D. After some 8 years of doing those fun stuff on the subjects I do, I mostly have a good feel on what usable settings I could use. Yes, I tinkered a bit with RAW long time ago and it just didn't suit my style as I want to do all those pull/push/recovery/etc. while in the field. I do photography for fun and nothing else.

It kind of kills me when people suggest the are so good they get exposure, WB, contrast, and sharpness right on every photo, but have no interest in using RAW.

<gil> Why it bothers you when some says they get good enough stuff when not using RAW? Your standard may not be the same as others. I may have a lower image standard than yours and thus a lower satisfaction level. What I am saying was that I am satisfied and happy that I could get the results I want by trying to improve my exposure as best as I can from JPG that maybe I need only a bit PP and not the whole capability from RAW. I might not be able to pull out some critical details and highlight but if I am satisfied with my image and composition overall, that is all that matters. If maybe you have seen some of my non-PP JPG shots, you might say those are just snaps and amateurish but to me, those are good enough.

gil wrote:

have any problem with others finding satisfaction with RAW :-D. De gustibus non est disputandum - of likes and dislikes, there should be no disputing - live and let live.

cheers,

gil

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Cheers, gil - San Jose, CA Cheap Lens, JPG and 100% Handholding Provocateur Like happiness, photography is often better created than pursued.

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need. To me, it is a sign of photographic inferiority complex. If one is at peace on what he is doing photographically whether from RAW or JPG, there is no need to impose one's preference to others. If there re lessons to be gathered from one's experience, they could express it as a tip or insight or plain share it but in a nice way so that it won't create animosity.

cheers,

gil

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Cheers, gil - San Jose, CA Cheap Lens, JPG and 100% Handholding Provocateur Like happiness, photography is often better created than pursued.

doing? You think you have a superior process than what others are using? I am happy with what I use and it is not RAW. I am not asking you or others to convince me otherwise as I am just giving another insight on why some like me would just stick it out with JPG to balance out why some wants it in RAW. If you are happy with RAW, so be it but don't keep on repeating the mantra that it is applicable to all.

As long as it makes you happy shooting jpg, that's all matters.

Cheers,

moimoi

cheers,

gil

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Cheers, gil - San Jose, CA Cheap Lens, JPG and 100% Handholding Provocateur Like happiness, photography is often better created than pursued.

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All harsh, impolite and/or unreasonable replies will be simply ignored.Measurebators are out of my world, photography is not about babbling behind a computer... but rather being out of your home, shoot and share photographs with other people. Shoot and Share...Thanks.

I think they should eliminate all taxes for people who make more than $250,000. They will be more inclined to create businesses and then they will hire more people which will improve the economy and we will all be rich!